A Day in the Life

Indeed, it has been a crazy long time since we’ve done a blog post. So, what have we been doing?? I would say what haven’t we been doing! It’s been a busy couple of months, filled with architectural drawings (Yay Susan at Gordon Castle Architects!), nailing down construction details with the general contractor (Yay Jerry at Levine Group!), exterior sign fabrication (Yay Tim at Dowling Signs!), permitting (Yay Arlington County?), and all sorts of other odds and ends. We racked our brains to think of a way to catch everyone up, and decided that just blogging a day’s worth of work would be the best way to capture how things have been going for The Brew Shop. (Spoiler: things are going great!)

So here is our day today. Wednesday, October 14, 2015.

5:45am Wake-up Call. OK, yes, this is not a typical start time for us. We’re just showing off. (The blog has probably already noted how one of us *cough – Julie – cough* is not a morning person, so early starts are not the norm.) But today we had to be down at the shop by 7am to meet our walk-in cooler installers – a thing that anyone would be excited for and happy to get up to accommodate!

On the way, we loaded up a cabinet we’d gotten from Community Forklift over in Hyattsville. Community Forklift is a non-profit reuse-recycle center for home improvement supplies. It is a magical land of old building supplies that reminds me of my Grandpa’s barn, which was always full of things like old headboards, arcane pieces of wood and miscellaneous supplies, some of the most ancient tools you’d ever seen, and a smell that I could never describe other than to say “old,” and, fondly, “comfy.” We needed a cabinet for the bathroom, to put our cleaning supplies and such into, and we scored a $5 cabinet and some $5 paint and went to work.

Us with cabinet. Original fixtures. Yes, it's still dark outside.

7am Arrival at The Brew Shop. When we got there a big moving truck was sitting out front, full of all the pieces of our enormous walk-in cooler. We then watched guys (far fewer than I thought would be needed) unload the heavy, giant pieces.

Moving truck, completely full of the components of our walk-in cooler

These guys carried the panels in by themselves. At 7am. We were impressed.

9am Assembly Begins. After some discussion with us, Jerry, and Susan, the installers set the track for placement of the unit. From there, pieces of the cooler seemed to fly up into place.

Setting the first pieces into the track, just in front of our beautiful mop sink

10:30am Tile Pickup. We needed to leave the installation fun to go pick up some tile we won on auction. We’ve been scouring auctions for various things and happened to get some porcelain tile for the bathroom floor on the cheap. So down to Alexandria we went for our five boxes of tile. As it turns out, tile is heavy. I mean, not that we couldn’t lift the boxes individually, but maybe loading up the hand truck with all five boxes wasn’t our smartest move.

Waiting for our five boxes...we were getting less than most people

Probably should have put some more air in our hand truck tires before loading it up with a million pounds of tiles

12:00pm Lunch. By noon, we were starving, since we had already been up for practically a full day. We needed something quick, because, you know, hanger is a risk for us, and had heard there is a great taco truck near the shop, back on 14th Street. And yes, there is! El Chilango was a delicious treat – authentic Mexican tacos (so says the truck), sold by super fun and friendly people.

Beth, super happy to have our tacos. Guy in background, super not happy to not yet have tacos.

1pm Back to the Shop. From there we went back to the shop to check in on the installation. By this time the doors were going on the front and the shelves were going in behind. The box was completely built and looked amazing in its enormity. We are also happy to report that, though we were told it wouldn’t be, the entire thing is magnetic. Design ideas abound…

The whole big thing

A view from the inside. Shelves for beer on the left. Taps for growlers straight ahead (envision it, everyone)

The installers finished up for the day and headed out. There are still a few “open items” including the compressor that will be placed on top…A project for another day.

4pm Toilet Paper Holder. Yes, that says toilet paper holder. We only have a single roll holder in the shop, much like you would see in your bathroom at home. This means we need one of those things that sits on the floor and holds a couple of rolls, so if the TP runs out, whoever is in there won’t be in a panic trying to figure out where we keep our extra rolls. (Hint, there’s going to be a gray cabinet in there…) In the interest of not buying one that looks like something your Grandma got at a Midwest craft show, we decided to build our own using a piece of pallet wood (sealed with polyurethane, don’t worry) and some galvanized pipe.

Keeping butts happy

5pm Stamping Six-Packs. Our blank six packs arrived in the mail this week, and naturally we want to get a Brew Shop stamp on those guys. This is typically something that gets done in front of the television, but it was Pandora’s Hip Hop Road Trip station that got it done today. Our six bottle wine holders also arrived this week, but, come on, we’ve already put in a 12 hour day!

Custom Brew Shop stamp designed by Tommy Herrmann

9pm Visit With Friends. We’d been meaning to get together with Greg and Stephanie all week – they were fresh off a trip to Troegs, and said they had gotten a little something for The Brew Shop. Well it’s not little! But it is awesome! Look for this sweet Nugget Nectar tin tacker to be somewhere in The Brew Shop once we’re open.

Mmmm, hoppy goodness

So there we have it. A day in the life of the Brew Ladies. It was both completely haphazard and absolutely typical all at the same time. Now that construction is officially underway, we are hoping to have more and more pictures to share every day. Stay tuned.